My Grandfather's Medals

[Steiner]

BTW this should be Great Grandfater's medals not Grandfather,s in the title. I am not that old!

When I was a boy growing up in New Brunswick around age 5 I used to go down in our basement and would play with my Great Grandfather's and Grandfather's war medals. No one in my family cared much about military service so the medals were just left there.

One day about 33 years later I asked my father what had happened to the medals. He said he had sold them around 1973 to his boss, a coin collector. I was a little sad that I would never get them back but my wife encouraged me to look up my father's boss.

He had died but I contacted his son and asked if he still had the collection. He said he would check it out and get back in touch. Sure enough he had them and returned them to me.

The next part of the story focuses on my Great Grandfather who fought in WW1 and whose medals were marked. First thing I did was get his attestation papers and found that he had also served in the East Yorkshire Regiment.

That is about how far I got for about 1 ? not sure of were to go next. Unfortunately my mother passed away in January of 2006. Later in the year about July I started to go through her paper work. Next thing I knew I was staring at my Great Grandfather's discharge papers from the East Yorkshire.

He served as a private from Oct 11 1892 till Oct 10 1904 completing 12 years service with 8 years and 154 days abroad! He was awarded also the Queen's South African medal along with the Orange Free State bar and the 1902 bar. His s/n was 3909. I do not have this medal but the hunt still goes on.

Since Great Granddad passed away before my birth I had no picture of him and had no idea what he looked like.

Back to Mom's paper work. I did find a picture of some veterans on parade in the pile of old photo's from the 30's. This was taken a distance and hard to see. I popped in my scanner and jacked up the rez. This was only one man in the picture with 4 medals on his breast and the picture was centered on him. Well there he is wearing a medal before his WW1 grouping which looked like a QSA.

I am quite happy. I few years ago I had nothing from him but through hard work and luck I was able to piece together a few things from his service.

Below are the things I have been able to collect.

Edited May 14, 2007 by Steiner

[Steiner]

[Steiner]

[Steiner]

[Steiner]

[Steiner]

[SAdagger]

Thats a great story Brian. Nice detective work and it was nice that the coin dealers son returned them to you.

[Laurence Strong]

Nice job.

[Ed_Haynes]

Well done! Now just to find that QSA!!

[Steiner]

Thanks guys do you know if I have a snowballs chance in hell of getting that QSA reissued to me by the British government?

Regards

Steiner

[Paul R]

What does the QSA look like? Can someone post an example?

I agree with the above! Great job in tracking everything down!! When was the photo taken?

Paul

[Tiger-pie]

What does the QSA look like? Can someone post an example?

I agree with the above! Great job in tracking everything down!! When was the photo taken?

Paul

See this link for a full description.

http://www.northeastmedals.co.uk/britishgu...frica_medal.htm

Regards;

Johnsy

Edited May 14, 2007 by Tiger-pie